Archives 2002

THE FEDERATION OF METRO TENANTS' ASSOCIATIONS	Archives 2002
Join Toronto Tenants Unite! Message Board: Have your voice heard and see what other tenants are saying!	All of our letters and news releases for 2002 Resolutions from the Tenant Summit October 26th 2002 From the Tenant Summit of October 26th 2002, the following statements will be presented at the Annual General Meeting of the Federation of Metro Tenants’ Associations for approval in principle for use in the upcoming year: Overall The 1998 Tenant Protection Act has failed in its experiment with "market rent control" and the Tribunal has completely failed to protect tenants. A new Act with real rent control and real protection for tenants must become law by the end of 2003. Rents We agree with the City of Toronto in calling for a rent roll back to 1998 levels. Tenants who moved in to their units since 1998 should receive rollbacks of 15% to 25%. After stability in rents, a fair system of rent control must be implemented. There must be a workable, fair "cost no longer borne" provision to the Act. Rights The former Landlord and Tenants Act and the Rental Housing Protection Act should be re-enacted. Housing is a right in every neighbourhood Access to legal rights shall be improved by ensuring that all barriers (including time, travel, language, cost, legal resources, etc) are removed as impediments, and that advocacy resources for tenants are adequately funded. There must be an Ombudsperson for tenants as recommended by tenants of Toronto Community Housing Corporation. Property Standards must be strengthened by increasing the number of inspectors, by being pro-active, and by being modeled on the restaurant inspection system. Tenants shall be free to organize or otherwise pursue rights (and legal standing) without fear of harassment and without any interference. Housing . All levels of government need to address housing supply and affordability with a new non-profit housing program. . Homelessness must be ended within five years. . Property tax on rental units must achieve equity with the rates for homeowners by 2006. This shall not be achieved by cutting any social programs or other services, but will require homeowners and businesses to pay their fair share. Alternately, property tax should be scrapped in favour of a municipal income tax as was recently recommended by a City of Ottawa task force. . There should be a "new deal" for municipalities that allows for retaining a portion of sales tax and fuel taxes. . Landlords should be licensed in buildings of three units or more. Every landlord must post a certificate that demonstrates that they have the necessary information on the laws governing residential tenancies. . The Tenant Non-Profit Redevelopment Corporation needs to be revived to allow for the sale of private rentals to the public sector at a fair price. November 12, 2002 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ERNIE, WHAT ABOUT TENANTS? Now that the Premier has seen the light about his disastrous deregulation policy on hydro, tenants would like him to see the same light about his disastrous anti-rent control policy. Tenants have seen rents escalate in leaps and bounds since the Tories brought in their ill-titled Tenant Protection Act. Over 60,000 tenants a year have lost their homes because they could not pay the rent. And the market has failed to respond with new units. Many tenants are on fixed incomes or low incomes. The situation gets worse every year. Follow the Hydro blueprint, Mr. Eves. Freeze rents until 2006 and rebate tenants who have paid the ridiculous increases that your Government has permitted. For a prime example, over 100,000 rental households in Toronto have been forced to pay a permanent extra increase based on a temporary spike in fuel costs. You could also direct your Tribunal to disallow all further claims based on utility cost increases. And by the way, make sure that tenants get your hydro rebates. We pay hydro in our rents. Dan McIntyre Program Co-Ordinator, FMTA 2003 Guideline anounced and denounced! On August 30th the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing announced that the Annual Rent Guideline Increase for 2003 was 2.9%. While the Tory government is trying to paint this increase as a "good thing" to paraphrase a well-known celebrity, tenants know that any rent increase is bad news. The FMTA issued a media release immediately pointing this out. Friday, August 30, 2002. For Immediate Release "Tenants will not be fooled by the lower rent increase guideline," the Federation of Metro Tenants’ Associations said this morning. The Federation is the oldest and largest Tenant Organization in Toronto and in Canada. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing is set to announce a 2003 rent increase guideline of 2.9% according to a published report. The figure is lower than last year’s guideline of 3.9%, but still higher than the inflation rate which is running at 2.1% for the month of July according to Statistics Canada. The rent increase guideline is the amount a may annually raise the rent without making an application to the government. "This is another blow for tenants" said Dan McIntyre, a tenant organizer at the FMTA. "At the end of the day, a rent increase is a rent increase. For working people and those on fixed incomes this announcement simply means they will lose more money." The average wage increase as reported by Statistics Canada in May is 2.1%, just keeping pace with inflation, but still below the 2.9% guideline to be announced today. Seniors are particularly hard hit. Pensions are already $6500 below the poverty line for the City of Toronto. Increases in the cost of living further deteriorate those meager incomes. There are approximately 185,000 seniors living in rental housing in the city, with almost half paying an average of 58% of their income on rent according to 1996 figures. Rents in Toronto have increase by about 30% since 1995, the majority of that increase coming after the Conservative government introduced its landlord/tenant legislation, the Tenant Protection Act, in 1998. The 2002 guideline generated a significant controversy after jumping to 3.9% from 2.9% the previous year. The reason for the increase was a short term spike in the price of natural gas, which raised heating costs in the winter of 2000-2001. Landlords were permitted the extra increase to cover this short-term expense. However, Toronto landlords applied for additional increases beyond the guideline on over 97,000 apartment units, pushing the total rent increase above 10% for many tenants. And since rent increases are permanent, tenants who fully paid for their landlord’s heating bill in 2002 will pay for it again in 2003, in 2004 and so on in perpetuity. Natural gas prices declined 34.6% in 2002 over the previous year according to Statscan. Residents of 1305 Wilson Avenue recently challenged landlords’ ability to receive permanent rent increases for one-time costs. That case was ultimately decided in favour of landlords in a decision released this week, but not before the court ordered the provincial government to take "a second look" at that area of the Tenant Protection Act. "The fact that the guideline is lower this year is a partial admission by the Government of what we have been saying all along, and what the court told them this week: that the law is unfair," McIntyre said. "But it will take more than fiddling with the numbers to compensate for last year’s increases. If the government wants to get serious about fixing this, they must change the entire guideline calculation formula." The FMTA is also concerned about the timing of the rent increase guideline announcement, coming at the start of the last long weekend of the summer. "It is a concern not just for tenants, but for all Ontarians that this government appears to be developing a habit of making major announcements affecting half the population at times when few people are around to hear," McIntyre said. "We saw it with the nursing home rate increases earlier this summer, and we’re seeing it again today." "There seems to be a desire on the part of the Government to dampen public awareness and discussion of the real social impact of these rent increases. All Ontario taxpayers should be concerned. How are rent hikes going to impact on homelessness and the health of seniors and poor people? There will be significant costs for everyone." Court rules against tenants on heat increase appeal On August 26, The Superior Court of Ontario decided that the landlords of Ontario will be allowed to keep windfall profits due to an temporary increase in gas price. They also ruled that the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal was correct not only to allow the landlord's increases, but that the Tribunal did not have the legal right to rule aginst these as long as the figures the landlord provides in his application are correct. While the case under appeal concerned 1305 Wilson Avenue, the decsion will affect all tenants whose landlords have made applications for an Above the Guideline Increase due to utility costs. The Federation responded with a letter hand delivered to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Chris Hodgson stating that enough is enough: change the law! August 29, 2002 The Honourable Chris Hodgson Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Dear Sir, Do you not finally agree that it is time to change your Government’s Tenant Protection Act? This week, you will be announcing that you will again be permitting rent increases in 2003 that will far exceed inflation. Rents have already gone beyond any bounds of fairness. This is the same week that the Divisional Court upheld permanent rent increases based on temporary increases in fuel costs experienced last year. Tenants will have to pay over and over again for this one time spike. The guideline formula compounds the problem. In media coverage of the 1305 Wilson case, even landlord spokespeople Robert Doumani and Brad Butt could not argue that this was fair. They both suggested that only the Government can change the law. Every day, we work with tenants who face these increases and the resulting evictions. They are senior citizens, working people, parents, students, and the most vulnerable people in our society. Their housing is becoming more and more unaffordable. Please tell them that you will put an end to rent increases in Ontario. Enough is enough – even for landlords. Please act now. The law is grossly unfair. Yours truly, Dan McIntyre Program Co-Ordinator Divisional Court reserves on heat increase appeal On Friday June 28th the Divisional Court heard an appeal brought forward by lawyer Richard Fink on behalf of the Tenants of 1503 Wilson Ave. The Court reserved judgment, meaning we don't know when we will hear their ruling. Unfortunately--though they seemed to agree these rent increases are unfair--the panel appeared to be leaning towards the argument put forward by the landlord. The FMTA wrote a letter to the Housing Minister on July 2nd, demanding that he solve this crisis immediately. Action from the Housing Minister months ago would have saved tenants from having to go to Court at all--not to mention saving us hundreds of thousands of dollars in unfair rent increases. ACT-O complaint to the Ombudsman The Advocacy Centre for Tenants-Ontario recently filed a 54 page submission to the Ontario Ombudsman. The submission deals with the failure of the Tenant Protection Act and the Housing Tribunal to meet fairness standards. The three main areas covered in the submission are the eviction process, the process for restoring a wrongfully evicted tenant to their home, and rent increases above the guideline based on one-time utility cost increases. The Federation supports ACT-O's findings and encourages the Ombudsman to investigation the lack of fairness for Ontario tenants. We are currently preparing a letter to the Ombudsman. Check out some of the FMTA's other advocacy work: The People's Summit, Monday June 24th, 2002 Several FMTA staff and board members attended the Toronto Civic Action Network's People's Summit. This Summit was organized to give a voice to all of those not invited to the Mayor's City Summit, being held June 25th and 26th. Over 200 attended the People's Summit. Discussion topics included ways to make Toronto a more equitable, livable and sustainable City. The need for affordable housing was agreed upon by almost all of the participants as a major concern for the City. Articles covering the People's Summit appeared in the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail. FMTA's Michelle Mulgrave was quoted in the Globe and Mail. CFRB Radio Interview, June 23rd, 2002 FMTA's Dan McIntyre appeared on a half hour long radio segment on CFRB radio. He discussed the Advocacy Centre for Tenants-Ontario's recent complaint to the Ombudsman about the Housing Tribunal, and the general unfairness for Ontario Tenants. Dan also took questions from callers. FMTA Attempts to Add Fuel on Gas Fight in Court, June 11th, 2002 We have been fighting unfair and unjust rent increase applications by landlords for a long time. The biggest issue in the last year has been the rubber stampers at the Tribunal permitting permanent rent increases based on a temporary increase in heat costs in the winter of 2001. An appeal on this matter was heard at Divisional Court on June 28. This case is for the tenants of 1305 Wilson who are ably represented by Mr. Richard Fink. Because this is so important to tens of thousands of tenants in Toronto, we retained our own lawyer to intervene in the appeal as a friend of the Court. Our motion for leave to intervene was heard on June 11th. Unfortunately, the landlord's opposed our intervention, and we were not granted leave. We were represneted by Mr. Rene Zanin of Fasken, Martineau and Dumoulin. This is a major law firm with vast experience in regulatory law. Mr. Zanin planned to tell the Court that the principles of equity and unjust enrichment should have been applied by the Tribunal in order to avoid injustice. This was an expensive undertaking for the FMTA. We will be seeking contributions to offset the costs. The FMTA has always fought for tenants. We could not pass this by, especially when we found a major law firm that believed in our case. Tenant Day Saturday June 1st, 2002 Approximately 60 tenants joined us at the Rosehill Reservoir to celebrate Tenant Day. The group marched from the park up the the Toronto South Housing Tribunal, across St. Clair Avenue and down Yonge Street. City Councillor Michael Walker and NDP Housing Critic Michael Prue joined us at the Rosehill Reservoir. Tenants gather in front of the Toronto South Housing Tribunal on Tenant Day, Saturday June 1st, 2002 Letter to Tribunal Chair, May 28th, 2002 FMTA wrote to the Tribunal Chair calling on him to halt rent increase hearings until the Divisional Court Appeal is heard on June 28th. We are awaiting his response. So far, we don't know of any hearings that have been cancelled. Tenant Summit IV, May 4th, 2002 A group of about 50 leaders from Toronto area Tenants' Associations joined us for our fourth Tenant Summit. One of the main topics of discussion was the June 28th Divisional Court case, and the FMTA's proposed intervention (see above). The group voted overwhelmingly in favour of the FMTA pursuing the intervention. The summit also focused on laying the groundwork for the next Provincial Election (expected to be called in the next 18 months). Participants also filled out pledge forms, pledging to come to Tenant Day, write to the Premier, and write letters to the editors of major newspapers. Tenant Summit V will be taking place some time next fall. FMTA participates in ACT-O Press Conference, April 9th, 2002 The Advocacy Centre for Tenants-Ontario (ACT-O) held a press conference to announce that it was filling an appeal to the Divisional Court on behalf of the tenants of 50 Panorama Court. This appeal is based on the gas cost issue, and is similar in nature to the one being heard on June 28th. Marcia Barry of the Federation's Outreach and Organizing Team was on hand to inform the media of how widespread these rent increases are. The story was aired on CBC Radio, CBC-TV, Radio Canada and CTV. FMTA demands resignation of Tribunal Chair, February 28th, 2002 Approximately 20 Federation staff, board members and supporters hand delivered a letter to Mr. Puta-Chekwe, demanding his resignation. Reporters from CFRB and the Toronto Sun covered the story. Although Mr. Puta-Chekwe declined to tender his resignation, he agreed to met with the Federation to hear our concerns about the lack of fairness for tenants at the Housing Tribunal. This meeting took place on March 28th. At the meeting, the chair said "NO!" to tenants: NO he will not resign, NO he will not make a public statement critical of the outcomes of the TPA, NO he will not advise the Tribunal Officers to stop allowing ridiculous and unfair permanent rent increases based on a temporary increase in fuel costs.